Escape from the city...tea picking

Waking up each morning to the sounds of cars honking, people talking, dancing grandmas and just the sounds of a city is something I have gotten used to lately.  Living in almost the heart of a city with a population of around 14 million people isn't always easy to find peace and quite.  So you have to find those avenues to escape the city sometimes and recharge yourself.  Recharge your mind and soul with fresh air, sounds of nature and the adventure of something outside the concrete jungle.

An epicurean lifestyle and taste has always found its way to my personal pallet.  From trying new

foods, to sampling exotic coffees and more recently learning where and how tea is harvested and made.  A few friend and a couple new ones ventured to the mountains just 2 hours outside of Chengdu to learn more about the popular green tea famous in the region.  Not always a big fan of taking tours, mainly because of the reputation they have in china for being a tourist trap to sell things, we signed up for this small group tour of tea picking. Why not give this one a try?  

We met our group and heading out for a full day trip.  The two hour bus ride out of the city was like a detox from the air, the noise and the high-rise buildings.  Once we arrived at the location, we were welcomed with the fresh mountain air, the lush green trees and bushes and the sounds of water flowing down the mountain.  We were immediately offered local green tree that was harvested from the fields we were gazing over.  A moment to sit and relax while sipping the pride of the Mengding mountains: MaoFeng Cha (green tea).  

Tea is more than a beverage here...it is a social norm and yet also a simple drink that always brings people together.   Saying that tea is a simple drink is actually not true.  When you pour the hot water over the tea leaves, one rarely understands the process that happened before those tea leaves were put into that cup.  The labor intensive tasks of hand-picking leaves at the just the right time of day or the goal of filling up your basket with fresh tea leaves and realizing the tiny leaves do NOT quickly add up.  We quickly enjoyed a local lunch and then grabbed our baskets and were ready for our tea picking adventure. 

Taking about a 20 minute hike down the mountain, we walked through the fields of tea and vegetables growing.  The sun was uninhibited by the city pollution and the air was crisp with the fragrance of mountain streams and trees.  We reached our "picking" location and our adventure began.  We were given a few instructions of how and what to pick.  "Looking for the top two-three leaves that are barely opened is what you really want," instructed our guide.  The new tea is what we were after.  The leaves that had not fully opened yet and were still left untouched by the scorching mountain sun.  After about an hour of picking, we all compared baskets and realized, we would starve if this was our full time job.  Yet, there was something very relaxing about listening to the stream nearby and the birds of the air chirp as we picked the tea.  No sounds of a busy city or screaming demands of sales and numbers from work...just the relaxing ambiance of a mountain and all that nature had for us. 

After our hour of picking, we combined our harvest and heading up the mountain.  Going back up to the top wasn't as easy as trekking down the first time, but we survived.  We were all excited that we had picked our very own tea.  Our leaves were combined together for the first inspection by the local tea guys.  They smiled politely...everyone realizing we actually barely even picked enough.  The men said we did "OK" picking and begin to sort the good leaves from the not so good.  Next began the frying or cooking of the tea.  The men took our harvest and in a type of huge frying wok, began to cook the tea.  This removes the moisture from the tea so that eventually you are left with the dried leaves.  The fragrance from this process was incredible.  Over and over the men would toss the leaves in the iron wok and then remove them to get the moisture out.  Eventually, our tea is ready.  The now dried leaves are separated into small portions for us to take home.  I must say, for all the work we did, we yielded maybe enough for two pots each.

Taking that bag of tea that we picked with our own hands, made us all a little proud and humble.  Understanding more now what is involved in picking a little tea gives a deeper appreciation for this wonderful drink that I am loving more and more.

All tea lovers from New Zealand, USA, England, Turkey, France and Australia.  Great Friends...Great Tea!